A Wife By Any Other Name

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When I married for the first time, I changed my name without thought. I was happy to replace the name that I associated with childhood with one that I related to becoming an adult.

I was young – 22 – and I had not yet accomplished much with my given name. Shedding it caused me no harm, only the hassle of making the changes to accounts and cards.

I embraced my wedded name, had no regrets. And, yet, in court when the judge was finishing the last of the paperwork, I was struck dumb when she said, “And I assume you want to keep your last name of B—-.”

After the mute shock wore off, it took everything in my power not to scream,  “$#!@ no!” I wanted away from that name as much as I wanted away from that artificial life. Besides, since he committed bigamy, there was already another Mrs. B—. That’s too many in my book.

My given name was legally restored that day yet I continued to use the other professionally for the remainder of the school year. It was strange time, bridging two worlds and using two names.  I worked under one name yet was applying for new jobs using another. I had accounts and cards in both names. I started my first real Facebook account using my maiden name and it suggested that I friend myself that had the married name (I had an unused account that I opened out of curiosity). For a year, I carried my divorce decree in my purse so that I could prove that I was one and the same, even though I felt worlds apart from my former Mrs. I almost felt like a fraud.

Changing my name was different at that point. I was 32. I had made a name for myself professionally and had hundreds of former students who knew me only as Mrs. B—. I almost lost the opportunity for the job I currently hold. Upon receiving my resume, one of the administrators realized that she was close friends with a former coworker of mine.

The administrator called her friend, “Did you used to work with a Lisa Arends?”

“No,” replied the friend, assuming that I was some charlatan.

She was telling the truth. It was my other self that had worked with her. Luckily, she realized the duality of my identity and called the administrator back to clarify.

That was a wake up call for me.

In a time when women married young and operated primarily in the domestic sphere, a name change was harmless. Now, with women marrying later, working outside the home and facing the realities of potential divorce, a name change can have very tangible consequences. Most discussions that I see on issue address it from a philosophical perspective, eschewing the patriarchal origins or talking about embracing the new family.

That’s romantic and everything, but what about the real world?

When my parents divorced, my mom had no real choice but to keep her married name. She had spent years building up a small business and her name was key to the word of mouth. No name = no way to put food on the table. She has since remarried yet retains her prior married name, at least in the professional realm. Ideal? Perhaps not. But practical.

I am choosing to do much the same. Although I refused to keep my former name out of principle, I now am operating out of practicality. When I wed again this fall, I will keep my given name. I simply have too much to lose if I do not.

On a side note, this reminds me of one the nicest gifts I have ever received. I won Teacher of the Year under my old identity. After the divorce, the plaque, which once occupied a place of honor in my classroom, was relegated to a closet since it was no longer in the right name. For my birthday (the first we were together), Brock snuck the plaque out of the closet and had the nameplate redone to match my new identity. Yes, I cried.

I queried my Facebook followers the other day on this topic. Many of them had also faced setbacks and hassles with multiple name changes and do not intend to change it again, regardless of changes in marital status.

Did you change your name? Would you do it again? How do handle (or intend to handle) the kids’ names (an issue I don’t have to worry about:) )?

It’s always funny when my students comment on my former name. When they see Mrs. B— scrawled across a clipboard or emblazoned on a book, they ask, “Who is she?”

“Oh, just someone I used to work with.”  She feels like a lifetime ago.

Besides, Tiger doesn't care what I'm called, as long as I'm still his momma:)
Besides, Tiger doesn’t care what I’m called, as long as I’m still his momma:)

The End.

Posted on by stilllearning2b

You would think that I would be used to endings by now. I finish several books a week, following the tales to their final word. I run races, keeping my eye on the finish line. My weekdays are filled with bells that signal the end of a class period seven times a day. I’ve been through 29 last days of school – some as a student, some as a teacher and a few as both. Hell, even my blog is about an end.

So why do endings, even the ones I look forward to, still manage to feel abrupt? Too soon? A premature conclusion reached before resolution?

This past Friday was the last day of school with kids. I had been waiting for that day, counting down since the end of the spring testing season. Many days, it felt like the end would never come. The days felt longer, the children squirrelier.

But then, that final bell did ring.

As I watched those faces pull away in the school buses for one last time, I felt a loss. For the past nine months, I have laughed and cried with those kids. I have driven them crazy and they have driven me crazier. I’ve struggled to help them make sense of algebra and we have struggled together to make sense of tragedy. For nine months, those 120 teenagers are part of my extended family. And then they’re gone. I will never see or hear from most of them ever again. In one day, they go from constant presence to memory.

Eighth grade is a crossroads year. It is time when teenagers are beginning to develop themselves apart from their parents. They are learning to make choices and beginning to understand the nature of consequences. They try on different personas as often as outfits, going from class clown to teacher’s pet and back again in a blink of an. I call them 150 lb two-year-olds, as they test boundaries yet want to know that you’re still looking out for them. I see them develop over the year into more independent beings but I don’t get to see the conclusion. In May, many of them are still at a crossroads and I am unsure which path they will choose.

It often feels unfinished. I find myself, years later, wondering about certain students. Hoping they did okay yet fearing that they did not. I have to trust in them and relinquish any influence. Sometimes, I receive the gift of an update when former students track me down. It’s funny – I can see the echo of the eighth grader I knew in these adults, yet there are years of experiences that have shaped them after they left me. In some ways, they are frozen in time for me: middle school in perpetuum (now that’s a nightmare!).

I think we all struggle with endings, even those that we initiate or those which we welcome. Every ending has elements that we relish leaving behind and facets that we will miss. Every ending brings uncertainty and transition. Every ending requires a re-scripting and reappraisal as we disentangle ourselves from the past and set course for the future. Every ending has opportunity.

My school year begins with a list of names. Monikers with no faces, no personalities. My year ends with a list of names, as I file reports and stuff report cards. Only now these names have meaning. Visages. Character. The year may have ended, but its impact has not. Those nine months together have influenced us all regardless of what our collective futures hold.

We tend to see endings as a termination, a conclusion. Perhaps it more accurate to think of them as a transition, a sign of change. It may be over, but its reverberations carry forth.

Six Relationship Red Flag Myths That Can Destroy Your Marriage

Posted on by stilllearning2b
betrayed
We’ve all seen the headlines: “7 Signs Your Man is Cheating” and “How to Know if Your Wife Is Having an Affair.” I don’t know about you, but I used to hold my marriage up to those checklists and, upon finding none of the warning signs in my own relationship, felt a sense of smug satisfaction. I found comfort and security in the fact that, at least according to popular wisdom, my marriage was strong and intact.

But I was wrong.

I used to believe that my marriage was impervious to outside pressures — we were passionate, communicative and had weathered many storms. I was confident. Too confident. My assurance that there was no danger was the danger. Subtle signs, that perhaps I would have seen if I was on high alert, went unnoticed since I thought I was safe.

I was familiar with the usual signs of infidelity — changes in hours, habits or behaviors. Apparently, he was familiar with them as well, as he was careful to cover his tracks without triggering any alarms. When his double life was revealed after he left the marriage with a text message, I was questioned endlessly about how I didn’t see it coming.

I didn’t see it because I failed to recognize the following myths about relationship red flags:

Assumptions

The danger of slipping on a wet floor does not come when we pass the orange cone emblazoned with, “Cuidado: piso mojado.” Rather, the hazard is when we do not see the sign and we continue to walk boldly across the innocent-looking floor until we are caught off guard by some hidden spill.

Read the rest on The Huffington Post.

Guilty Pleasures

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Have you ever noticed that children do not understand the concept of a guilty pleasure?

Sunday afternoon found me in the bath tub after the completion of a daunting to-do list. I decided to do this bath right – I had the window open to listen to the rain, a glass of wine and a newly downloaded Kindle book. I had no rush, no worries.

As I lay back into the scented bubbles, enjoying the feeling of my arms floating, cradled by the warm water, I was taken back to my childhood.

I used to spend hours in tubs – both of the hot and bath varieties – savoring the slippery denseness surrounding my buoyant frame. I would stay in the waters until hunger or a completed book drove me out, never feeling guilty for wasted time or feeling pressure to accomplish something more meaningful. On the nights I spent at my dad’s apartment in my childhood, he would knock on the bathroom door to check on me about every 30 minutes. Many nights, he made it to four knocks before I finally emerged from the tub.

I understood the concept of pleasure. But I never thought to associate it with guilt.

So why does that change? Why do I now feel guilty or lazy when I indulge? Why do I judge myself?

Part of it is out of necessity. When we are young, our parents and guardians act as our voice of reason, limiting our overindulgences (“You can only have two cookies”). We do not have to self-limit; it is done for us.

But, at some point, that regulation has to shift to us. We have to learn how to work before play and eat our broccoli before our ice cream. We become the care takers and the needs of others are placed before our own. Without that mental management, we would all be living in our parent’s homes, eating Oreo’s all day and playing video games. Well, except for me. I’d be in a bath tub with a book. And probably broccoli.

The problem is that, at some point, many of us get too good at using that internal voice. Not that we always obey it (Ever had an internal argument about if you should eat that dessert? Yeah, who won?) but that we usually feel guilty when we do not.

We indulge. But we don’t necessarily enjoy.

That dessert tastes much better when you’re not berating yourself for eating it. The hope is that the internal monologue of guilt will keep your willpower in check. That if you feel bad about the behavior, you will avoid it in the future. Reality doesn’t work that way. Rarely does guilt about an indulgence keep us in check. We just act as though it does. The reality is that our cravings for whatever the indulgence are more fully satisfied when we fully give in to the experience.

So what’s the answer? How do we balance our need for self-regulation and yet still enjoy our indulgences without guilt?

I know that I am going to let my parental mind set my guidelines and then turn control over to my inner child to enjoy the experience.

All I can say is that it’s good my Kindle has limited battery power. Otherwise, I may never get out of the bath:)

Do You Ever Hear That Voice?

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Do you ever hear that voice? The one that tells you that you’re not (good/smart/strong/thin/pretty/rich) enough?

The voice that finds your insecurities and broadcasts them back to you?

The voice that makes you question your choices. Your life. Your worth.

Do you ever hear it? Do you listen?

I’ve been listening to it lately.

It started innocently enough. I needed to buy a new pair of sandals to replace a pair that self-destructed. I made a stop at the shoe store on my way to gym. At the store, I took off my gym shoes and peeled off my socks only to discover that the polish on my toenails was chipped and half rubbed off (the natural consequence of spending more time running than on toe painting).

I looked up and noticed that all of the other women in the store were perfectly polished – nails and otherwise.

I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed.

The voice whispered to me that I was not good enough.

I got over it enough to locate a pair of sandals and escape to gym, where I thought I would be safe.

But the voice followed.

It watched the other women in the gym and was quick to point out comparisons.

“Look at that! She can squat 140 pounds. You can’t do that!”

“Oh, look. She’s wearing that cute Athleta outfit you wanted. Too bad you only have your old race t-shirt on.”

“Look at her form on leg lifts! You’ll never be flexible enough to do that.”

Over the next couple weeks, the voice was like a malignant parrot on my shoulder. I’d shake it off for a time, but it kept coming home to roost. It seemed to feel the need to comment on every area of my life:

When a pair of shorts I wore last summer wouldn’t quite make the journey over my hips, “Well, look at that. Getting a little chunky there, are we?”

When one of my students complained about a boring lesson, “Wow, you can’t even make M&Ms entertaining. That’s pretty bad.”

When I looked at my book sales and saw that they had slipped, “What did you expect? It’s not like you’re any good at this.”

When another week went by and I hadn’t finished a piece I started for Huffpo, “You’re just a fraud anyways. Just give up on it.”

Yesterday, after more than a week of this verbal abuse by my own critical mind, I decided I would take some action. I stopped at Walmart on the way to yoga, thinking that some new makeup would do the trick. Maybe eye liner has some magical gag order action. The eyeliner is nice (and much easier to apply than the broken, stubby pencil I had been using that always threatened to leave splinters along with its color) but it didn’t shut up the voice.

That’s because I was allowing the voice to distract me from the true insecurities.

I wasn’t really upset about unpainted toenails or curvier hips.

It’s bigger than that.

The life of a teacher has a rhythm: frantic action in August and September settle into a routine that slowly builds in intensity until it peaks in May. And then we breathe.

Except I’m not content to simply breathe.

I’m not content to simply be a teacher.

I want more.

But I don’t know how.

Last summer, I was singularly focused on finishing the book and getting the wellness coaching business up and running.

I succeeded on both fronts.

This year, I have so much I want to do.

But I also have doubts. Am I wasting my time and energy? Which paths do I explore and which should I ignore?

Last summer, I posted four small bulletin boards above my desk, labeled body (marathon training), book (notes, etc. for writing it), blog (goals and post ideas) and business (goals and info for the coaching). I have not altered the boards much since the summer. As I look through the pages tacked to the squares, I realize that I am accomplished most of what I intended last summer.

So why is it not enough?

photo-238

Change is scary. Risk is scarier still. My inner critic is telling me to maintain the status quo, to not dare to post bigger goals and intentions. The voice tells me not to try so that I do not risk failure.

Today, I am telling my inner voice to shove it.

I am dedicating today to rebuilding my boards. I am committing to posting bigger goals and aspirations than before. I am pledging to sort through my ideas and clarify my paths. I am promising to use those boards as inspiration and motivation this summer.

So, yeah, I hear that voice. But today, I’m telling it to shut up. After I paint my toenails, that is:)

(This post makes me think of that old SNL skit with Stewart Smally: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.” 🙂 )